a. Mental or Bodily Harm, Reckless Action or Disregard: Intentionally inflicting or attempting to inflict mental or bodily harm on any person, including on the charged student; taking any reckless action, or showing reckless disregard, from which mental or bodily harm could result to any person, including to the cha... Read More

Misuse or Abuse of Computational Facilities, including: … use of computational facilities to send obscene, abusive, harassing or threatening messages or to engage in stalking behavior or to repeatedly send unwanted email to individuals;
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Those wishing to organize or stage activities covered by this policy on any University property are required to contact the Rice University Police Department (RUPD) at least 48 hours in advance of the activity to request permission to hold the activity. Because RUPD is open at all hours and also plays a central role... Read More

The university … reserves the right to insist on the withdrawal of any student whose conduct it judges to be clearly detrimental to the best interests of either the student or the university. The appropriate authorities take such action only after careful consideration.
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The law recognizes in academic freedom a principal means of safeguarding free expression throughout society. In Keyishian, Justice Brennan put academic freedom at the very core of First Amendment protections. Two other justices, Felix Frankfurter in Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957) and Lewis Powell in Regents of the U... Read More

One of the University’s functions is to provide its community of students, faculty and staff members a forum for the safe, non-disruptive expression and discussion of diverse points of view, even when those expressions or discussions are controversial.
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Policies are rated on their inclusion of 10 due process safeguards. Each policy may receive
2 points for fully including that safeguard, 1 point for partial
inclusion, and 0 points for no meaningful inclusion. Most, but not
all, institutions have separate policies for sexual misconduct and all
other misconduct. See FIRE’s Spotlight on Due Process report for more
information.

Grades

Non-Sexual Misconduct

F

4/20

Meaningful presumption of innocence

Timely and adequate written notice

Time to prepare with evidence

Impartial fact-finders

Meaningful hearing process

Right to present to fact-finder

Right to meaningful cross-ex

Active participation of advisor

Meaningful right to appeal

Unanimity or clear and convincing evidence

Sexual Misconduct

F

4/20

Meaningful presumption of innocence

Timely and adequate written notice

Time to prepare with evidence

Impartial fact-finders

Meaningful hearing process

Right to present to fact-finder

Right to meaningful cross-ex

Active participation of advisor

Meaningful right to appeal

Unanimity or clear and convincing evidence

At present, FIRE has not been publicly involved in any cases at this school.

FIRE’s U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges” Countdown continues today. We’re giving you a school-by-school analysis of just how well America’s “Best Colleges” do when it comes to protecting free speech on campus. Unfortunately, in today’s crop of top campuses, troubling speech codes abound. As part of FIRE’s fresh look at U.S. News’ top-ranked… Read more

Pro tip: If your speech silences someone else’s speech, there’s a good chance that your speech is no longer protected. That is the subject of an op-ed last week in The Rice Thresher by Rice University student Anthony Lauriello, titled "Eric Cantor protests at Rice University an affront to open discourse and free speech." According… Read more

An editorial in Rice University’s student newspaper, The Rice Thresher, recently took FIRE to task for giving Rice a "red-light" rating for maintaining policies that censor student speech. As FIRE explained in the blog post that drew the Thresher‘s attention, Rice’s red-light rating is because of its policy on Appropriate Use of Information Technology Resources…. Read more

Throughout the spring semester, FIRE is drawing special attention to the state of free speech at America’s top 25 national universities (as ranked by U.S. News & World Report). Today we review policies at Rice University, which FIRE has given a red-light rating for maintaining a policy that clearly and substantially restricts free expression on… Read more